Can we have a thread where we share unlikely but true stories?

[letsgowiththat]

I'll start.

My (non English speaking) DGF received an email (in English) from the solicitor of a man who claimed to be the son of a long lost relative from Africa claiming he was basically of princely status and there was an inheritance waiting for my DGF and his siblings.
So basically like the Nigerian prince scam.

Except it was all true and it was a relative who escaped my DGFs home country as he did not want to be drafted into the war and ended up never contacting anyone again and building a small empire in Africa, getting married (multiple times) and having DCs. He willed a small part of his accounts to my DGFs by then deceased mother who was his cousin and then it got passed down and split between my DGF and his siblings by default. Not life changing money but one of our favourite stories to tell!

The majority of the emails was done through google translate as well

Does anyone have any "sounds like a lie but is true" stories they'd like to share?

We collected a Welsh dresser (freecycle) from a lady in the next village.
Our 2 little boys were in the back of the car, all excited and wanting to help me and DH load it onto the trailer.

When I went to lift my end of the dresser, the woman shouted "Stop! No lifting! You're pregnant!" I was a skinny size 10 so no fat tum to be mistaken for a baby bump and I had an IUD so was confident I wasn't pregnant.

She insisted that I was, and got her neighbour to help DH load it on the trailer. As we left, she said "Your sons will love having a baby sister."
We weren't planning any more children and thought she was a bit bonkers.

38 weeks later, I gave birth to my daughter. I must have only just conceived when we collected the dresser. The IUD was snuggled up to the placenta.

Weird.

My DH and I had been to a casino for our friends 21st years ago. We were driving home, it was gone 2am and we cut through a country road which is well known to us. I got a feeling of absolute dread and said to him turn back to the sharp bend and stop something is wrong, he refused, I literally burst into tears, he did a u-turn and drove back.

I got out of the car closely followed by DH and instantly I saw a man laying in the bush with a helmet on that was filled with blood. I called an ambulance and I thought he would die, I couldn't remove his helmet but he gurgling blood and I was touching his hand begging him to stay with us.

I gave my name and number to the ambulance and asked them to update me, 2 days later I got a call from his Mother crying telling me if it wasn't for us, he wouldn't be alive.

He was only 18 and had been riding home from a friends when somebody had overtaken him but had clipped him and sent him into a tree. He had a fractured spine and several broken ribs and the blood in his helmet was from internal bleeding.

Most days I think about it and I've never experienced a feeling of dread like that since.

@Hoppinggreen

We arrived last night at a holiday cottage in a small village in Northumbria (3 hours from home). Took the dog for a walk and met a couple with their dog. Spoke to them for a bit to find that they moved up here a few weeks ago from a few streets from our home. We didn’t know them before at all and they were the only people we met on our walk yesterday.

And we have just bumped into them again on a beach 10 miles from here !!

@wishes1111

My DH and I had been to a casino for our friends 21st years ago. We were driving home, it was gone 2am and we cut through a country road which is well known to us. I got a feeling of absolute dread and said to him turn back to the sharp bend and stop something is wrong, he refused, I literally burst into tears, he did a u-turn and drove back.

I got out of the car closely followed by DH and instantly I saw a man laying in the bush with a helmet on that was filled with blood. I called an ambulance and I thought he would die, I couldn't remove his helmet but he gurgling blood and I was touching his hand begging him to stay with us.

I gave my name and number to the ambulance and asked them to update me, 2 days later I got a call from his Mother crying telling me if it wasn't for us, he wouldn't be alive.

He was only 18 and had been riding home from a friends when somebody had overtaken him but had clipped him and sent him into a tree. He had a fractured spine and several broken ribs and the blood in his helmet was from internal bleeding.

Most days I think about it and I've never experienced a feeling of dread like that since.

Thank God you were there, and that he survived the accident. But if he had died, he had you with him. A great example of following your intuition x

Back in the 80s I was an air hostess. I had been on a week long Atlanta and one of the stewards had brought his brother. They are Portuguese. It was a great trip and we all got on really well. A few weeks later I was on a Lisbon night stop which was the beginning of an 11 day South American trip. In the morning several of the crew, including me, were going out to do some shopping. We weren’t flying the next leg until later that evening. A taxi pulled up outside the hotel and the steward’s brother got out of it. We recognised each other immediately. We couldn’t believe the chances of this happening. He suggested coffee and I said yes. The rest of the crew had walked on a bit and turned round to see me walking back into the hotel with a man who had just got out of a taxi. They had no idea I knew him. I had a bit of explaining to do when we all met up later.

This has reminded me of something that happened when I was visiting my sister in London. I used to live there and she still did, but I'd moved to York. We were walking along Oxford Street and someone said, "Hello [my name]". I stopped in shock, because it was quite a long while since I'd lived in London (and then it was only for about six months), and I saw it was someone I knew from out and about in York pubs and clubs.

Now York may be a city, but it's a very small one, and obviously Oxford Street is massive and usually jam-packed. It was such a weird coincidence that we should both be in that space on that street at exactly the same time.

Very tame compared to some of the stories here but full of coincidence none the less.

As a child at first school (1970’s equivalent to ks1) we almost always went to the same place on holiday and, on the drive down, my parents would break up the journey with a visit to a cathedral or abbey en route. They never told us kids which one it would be so we would find out on the journey.

Every time we would, without fail, bump into the same teacher from our school. She would be staying somewhere near the cathedral or abbey so it was less surprising that she was there but for us to turn up, at the same time on the same day, while travelling through to the far end of the West Country seemed too much of a coincidence but my parents were always surprised to see her so even they hadn’t planned it!!

Another one which I have no explanation for......

DF died in 2015 and my DF (now DH) and I helped DM clear out the house and decorate it along with helping with replacing the central heating system and re carpeting some rooms - we used cousins of DH who were tradesmen to keep costs down.

Anyway, we were having an estate agent coming one particular day to give a probate valuation of the house and were just finishing off the last bits of decorating in what had been DF bedroom and, when ready to move back into, would become DM’s bedroom. We were moving a set of books off the windowsill to give it a lick of paint when a tissue packet fell to the floor from between 2 books. I picked it up ready to throw it in the black sack we were using for rubbish when I realised it had something in it. When I looked inside there were 3 of DM’s rings, including 2 she had inherited, that had been missing for more than 15 years and were presumed lost. We rang DM to tell her we had found them (and nearly thrown them out 😳) but she didn’t believe us as we had move that pile of books numerous times and there seemed no reason for the tissue packet to even be in between them let alone it would choose that moment to fall out not another time. Plus she would never had put those rings (or any of her rings) in an empty tissue packet she would have put them in her purse if she had taken them off but she didn’t even wear the inherited ones as they were quite old and delicate.

Chatting about it later when she came over to pick them up she felt it was a message from DF that he was happy with her using his bedroom and to let her know he was still around looking out for her.

My bf at school and I had been on Ann A level field trip in north Wales and were waiting late evening for a connecting train to Bath from Birmingham.
A small swarthy looking man approached us and asked where were we going? I told him and he said he had his car outside and he’d take us.
I said no and he got a bit insistent. Luckily two BR police saw what was happening and as they approached us he scarpered.

It was some time later when I recognised him from photos of Fred West.
It still makes me shudder many years later.

@wishes1111

My DH and I had been to a casino for our friends 21st years ago. We were driving home, it was gone 2am and we cut through a country road which is well known to us. I got a feeling of absolute dread and said to him turn back to the sharp bend and stop something is wrong, he refused, I literally burst into tears, he did a u-turn and drove back.

I got out of the car closely followed by DH and instantly I saw a man laying in the bush with a helmet on that was filled with blood. I called an ambulance and I thought he would die, I couldn't remove his helmet but he gurgling blood and I was touching his hand begging him to stay with us.

I gave my name and number to the ambulance and asked them to update me, 2 days later I got a call from his Mother crying telling me if it wasn't for us, he wouldn't be alive.

He was only 18 and had been riding home from a friends when somebody had overtaken him but had clipped him and sent him into a tree. He had a fractured spine and several broken ribs and the blood in his helmet was from internal bleeding.

Most days I think about it and I've never experienced a feeling of dread like that since.

Am I the only one wondering if it was your car that had clipped him in the dark without realising but some part of your brain registered it and reacted to it?

Not really a strange story/coincidence but here goes.

I awoke one morning a couple of weeks ago and my first thought was, I wonder when my next anti Tetanus booster vaccination is due?
(It is recommended that one has the booster every 10 years.)
Now I can’t remember what I did 10 weeks/months ago let alone 10 years ago.
Anyway, phoned my Doctors surgery and asked the receptionist to check my records, she duly booked me an appointment for today, 21st April, 2021. EXACTLY 10 years to the day of my last vaccination.🙈

[quote JustNotFunAnymore]**@Eminybob* My friend has a cousin with the surname “Tracy” and his wife is called Tracy so when they married she became Tracy Tracy and kept it and goes by that name!*

I used to work with a Tracy Tracy many years ago![/quote]
Our A level English teacher was a lovely man called Mr Penney, he told us that he saw a woman he quite fancied and went over to introduce himself. After saying 'hi, my name's xxx Penney' she introduced herself as Penny. He said 'I couldn't marry you, you'd be Penny Penney' and chortled. In actual fact they did marry and still are many years later.

"....sure you still get the gist. I have a higher power guardian angel looking out for me who manifests every 7 years as a shitting bird."

Think yourself lucky. Angel sh*t is a bugger to wash out.

I used to know an Alison Allison. Every time I saw her I used to wonder why she didn't keep her maiden name. Iirc she later divorced.

@wishes1111

My DH and I had been to a casino for our friends 21st years ago. We were driving home, it was gone 2am and we cut through a country road which is well known to us. I got a feeling of absolute dread and said to him turn back to the sharp bend and stop something is wrong, he refused, I literally burst into tears, he did a u-turn and drove back.

I got out of the car closely followed by DH and instantly I saw a man laying in the bush with a helmet on that was filled with blood. I called an ambulance and I thought he would die, I couldn't remove his helmet but he gurgling blood and I was touching his hand begging him to stay with us.

I gave my name and number to the ambulance and asked them to update me, 2 days later I got a call from his Mother crying telling me if it wasn't for us, he wouldn't be alive.

He was only 18 and had been riding home from a friends when somebody had overtaken him but had clipped him and sent him into a tree. He had a fractured spine and several broken ribs and the blood in his helmet was from internal bleeding.

Most days I think about it and I've never experienced a feeling of dread like that since.

What am amazing story!

A simile thing happened to a colleague of mine. He was on his way home and had a very strong urge to take a "scenic" route rather than the direct one he usually took, even though it would take him much longer and it was dreadful weather. It was so strong he couldn't ignore it.

As he went round one of the bends in the road he had to stop sharp because there was someone lying in the road in front of him. Another driver had skidded off the road and hit a tree. He was injured but managed to get out of the car and stagger to the road where he collapsed. It was bitterly cold and icy. My colleague was to that the man would have died if he hadn't found him

*told, not to

These stories remind me of another one. Family friend out on his bike had a cardiac arrest. Three separate emergency workers arrived on the scene as passers by, one of whom was on the way home from a training course and had a defibrillator in his car. All had changed their usual route for one reason or another which made them pass by when they wouldn't normally. An absolute miracle, and his life was saved.

Took me a while to think of one but I did. When I was 12 I met a girl at an Irish dancing contest. We got on very well so became pen pals until we were around 15, then lost touch.
When I was 21 I worked for a year in Germany. I started working at a butchers in the kitchen. They told me id be working with another Irish girl.
It was the same girl!!!

I had a few penpals as a kid/teen and knack for knowing when letters had arrived before I got home. There was no pattern on how and when letters arrived but my sisters used to hide them to see me a bit surprised there was no letter when I clearly felt there was one. Never failed.

I don’t get letters at all these days but I always pick up the phone before it rings, if someone has left a message while I left the phone somewhere else in the house, I just know I need to check my phone.

Just remembered of another... DP have a friend from university who appear to have lived EVERYWHERE, so we are driving through a village in the middle of nowhere... “oh Archie lived around here”, liked a village on the other end of the country “oh, Archie ran a pub in that village”, said that I visited my friend in Australia and DP said he had been at my friend’s little town as “Archie’s parents moved back there after Archie went to uni”. Archie DP are not even from this area, they just met at university (6hours away from here) but after so many “Archie was here” comments I started to joke that Archie was DP’s imaginary friend.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, DP took my dog for a walk, I heard him make a fuss just before he got to the garden gate. I thought it was a bit unusual he made such a fuss talking with my neighbours. He returned an hour later and happily announced “you are not going to believe this! Archie just moved 5 houses down the road!!!”

My own road... can’t believe it!

2 years ago DS decided to go as James Bond for world book day at Primary , he had a smart tux and fake gun and looked fab.
As we turned out of our road to drive to school we found ourself behind an Aston Martin DBS! We followed it the whole 15 minute drive up to school until we turned off into the carpark.
Never seen one in person before or since but DS was absolutely delighted and we couldn’t believe the coincidence.

Mrm was fara w we would op for op toto o the playwright o

You alright there, @heartcake?

I've just seen that!!!!
No idea where that came from!!!
I think it must be something like a pocket dial!
Ooopps.
Yes, I'm fine thanks.

Phew! Had me a bit worried there.

I have to say, I’m impressed that your pocket dials can come up with ‘playwright’

Me too